Still no decision

Well, as of the 11 pm update things are not looking so good for our date with Ike.  JSC officially closes at noon tomorrow (Thursday).  The school district has officially closed for Thursday and Friday.  No mandatory evacuations have come across for us at this time so C and I have just been sitting here debating the pros and cons of sheltering in place or evacuating.  If we evacuate we would head out with TR, PC and LW who we spent the week with when we evacuated for Rita back in 2005.  We had it better than most people and really have quite fond memories of the event.  Plus we would probably add ZCM and CM with their beagle as well as AMR into the mix.  Let me tell you, if you are going to have to evacuate for a hurricane, these are the people to do it with.

So, back to the pros and cons...

Option 1

Being in 2 separate cars for multiple hours (I'm guessing at a minimum 10-12 hours if we are lucky) with 2 children, 2 cats and a 75 lb lab along with a few irreplaceable belongings to drive to Austin or Lafayette, LA......sucks.  Oh, and just for the record, both Austin and Lafayette are part of the cone that will most likely see severe weather from this storm so we will really never get away from it.

Option 2

Staying home and securing the house as best we can knowing full well that we could be stuck here for days, even weeks without electricity and all of the nastiness that would land in our front yard with the storm surge plus dealing with 2 children, 2 cats and a 75 lb lab......sucks.

So, in short, we aren't liking either of our options.  But at this point, at least we still HAVE options.  I had a sobering experience driving to class tonight (school is a 40 minute drive for me).  On the way to class I saw at LEAST 50 charter buses with full police escort heading, I'm assuming, to Galveston and areas south to evacuate those folks with special needs.  And if that wasn't eerie enough, on the way home I saw 6-8 ambulances traveling with lights and sirens at full speed northbound on 288 toward the medical center.  I'm sure they were full of seriously ill patients from hospitals south of us along the coast that needed to be evacuated to other hospitals for their continued care.  Not a pleasant thought for sure.

The bright side of the evening was that because of the hurricane situation they were waiving the tolls on Beltway 8.  Sometimes you gotta look really hard for the bright side but it is always there!  I saved 8 bucks tonight!  

We'll update you by mid-day on Thursday as to what we decide to do.  Thanks to all of our friends and family who are keeping us in their thoughts this weekend as we have our date with Ike.